I'm a writer who never writes about sex. It's so far from my own fictional world.

No fiction, no myths, no lies, no tangled webs - this is how Irie imagined her homeland. Because homeland is one of the magical fantasy words like unicorn and soul and infinity that have now passed into language.

Desperation, weakness, vulnerability - these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger than empathy.

...They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.

(Feedback) People become addicted to it. That’s why journalism is so popular, because you want to hear, every day, what people think of what you just wrote. I think a little patience on that front can be good, too.

In a whisper he began begging for—and, as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.

It made me feel that I had to work very hard, but I've always felt I had to work very hard to get my own approval.